Communities must anticipate disasters that, despite extensive planning and preparation, exceed the capabilities of its emergency services, personnel, equipment, and facilities of the community and its mutual aid partners. With resources that may be quickly exhausted or damage to infrastructure, which limit its ability to mobilize, establishing partnerships with private businesses before a disaster is critical to ensuring that resources are readily available to meet unpredictable needs. This session will explore how communities can effectively engage the private sector as partners in building resilience in order to serve its residents in ways it could not on its own.